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In 1976, three years before she became Prime Minister of England, Margaret Thatcher said, in an interview, The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples money. Oddly enough, her statement rings true today in our own state.

For decades, many who follow the Legislature have quipped that Wyoming is the most conservative socialist state in the country. How so? Because we Wyomingites have never been averse to true benefits that come from government programs, but we have preferred to let the oil and coal industries pay for them, rather than reaching deeper into our own pockets.

Due to declining revenue from mineral severance tax, local government agencies have been cutting services and putting in place hiring freezes for years. Last November, Gov. Mark Gordon announced an additional $500 million in cuts, which include layoffs.

To keep critical services afloat, the Legislature has relied heavily on the rainy day savings fund, but this account has been rapidly dwindling and will not last much longer. Wyoming is running out of other peoples money.

Generations of Wyomingites are truly blessed to have grown up during a time when we received so much at so little cost to ourselves. Unfortunately, much of what we have taken for granted is about to go away unless the Legislature is prepared to make some changes.

According to the Wyoming Division of Economic Analysis, on average, a family of three pays $3,180 in taxes while receiving $27,050 in government services. The question Wyoming legislators will have to answer this legislative session is whether their constituents are willing and able to live without the $23,870 worth of unfunded services.

Good stewardship requires ensuring proper allocation of funds and eliminating waste, but fewer funds coming into the state has resulted in fewer dollars allocated for city and county governments. Along with cuts to Wyomings Departments of Health and Education, fewer dollars also have been allocated to local law enforcement, emergency services and road maintenance.

Fewer dollars also resulted in cuts to programs serving Wyomings youth, vulnerable adults and the elderly, as well as programs providing mental health treatment. (This last point is extremely concerning as Wyoming regularly ranks in the top three states for highest rates of suicide, per capita.)

Subsidiarity is a principle of Catholic social teaching which holds that large institutions in society (like the federal government) are responsible for ensuring the protection of human dignity and the common good and to ensure that basic human needs are being met. At the same time, subsidiarity means that larger institutions SHOULD NOT overwhelm or interfere with smaller institutions that are capably providing those same protections.

Through the centuries, the church has recognized that human dignity and the common good are best protected by local institutions (the most local institution being the family). This does not mean, however, that if local institutions are incapable of providing for basic human needs, that larger institutions are off the hook.

Many of my friends are concerned that socialist ideas seem to be gaining interest nationally. They notice that even conservative-minded people are placing unrealistic hopes on government. As if the right form of government can solve all of our problems. That will never be true. Families, religious communities and local charities all have an irreplaceable role to play. And yet, the best version of government should still be debated.

I am no expert, but it seems to me that the best way to prevent socialism is to enable strong state governments. Local governments are in a better position to determine what necessary infrastructure looks like. They have a clearer understanding of the particular unmet needs of the people, as well as what would be the most effective and efficient solutions to the problems people are facing. Strong local governments are more accessible and easier to hold accountable. And, in the event that the federal government does overstep its constitutional authority, which it often does, we will want a state government weighty enough to push back.

But Wyoming will only be able to do that if it is adequately funded. Specifically, how do we ensure that?

That is the hard question our legislators are currently facing. What is clear is that we can no longer wait for coal and oil to bounce back. Our legislators will have much to consider, including making further cuts, finding creative ways to bring new business here (like blockchain legislation has done), raising taxes or some combination of the three. The challenge will be to keep in mind the human toll each decision will have, including lost jobs or lost aid to the most vulnerable.

Let us pray for our legislators this session.

Deacon Mike Leman works for the Diocese of Cheyenne in the Office of Catholic Social Teaching and Legislative Liaison.

See the rest here:
Leman: To stave off socialism, we need to fund our state government - Wyoming Tribune

In the Spokesman-Review paper of Jan. 18, 2021, page A6, there was an article by the Associated Press titled Little Old West Virginia Sets Pace on Vaccine Rollout.

As I was reading this article a light bulb went on in my head this article perfectly describes capitalism vs socialism and what a great example that was! There is no contest in the private sectors ability to meet the needs of the people (i.e., capitalism) vs. the governments ability to timely meet the needs of the people (i.e., socialism). Capitalism wins hands down!

Socialism is so encumbered with politics and power plays that peoples needs are not very high on the priority list. This is particularly true when you realize individual choice is absent in socialism All the folks who believe they can live off the governments largess are just fooling themselves.

There is nothing in this world for free. Someone always pays the price.

Kathleen Ochs

Colville

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A perspective on socialism - The Spokesman-Review

In the 1980s, only 2 percent of publicly traded companies in the U.S. were considered zombies, a term used by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) for companies that, over the previous three years, had not earned enough profit to make even the interest payments on their debt, Sharma wrote. The zombie minority started to grow rapidly in the early 2000s, and by the eve of the pandemic, accounted for 19 percent of U.S.-listed companies. Its happening in Europe, China and Japan, too.

And its all logical. Prolonged and increasingly generous bailouts, where governments are willing to buy even corporate junk bonds to prevent foreclosures, added Sharma, distort the efficient allocation of capital needed to raise productivity.

The past few years should have been an era of huge creative destruction. With so many new cheap digital tools of innovation, so much access to cheap high-powered computing and so much easy money, start-ups should have been exploding. They were not.

Before the pandemic, the U.S. was generating start-ups and shutting down established companies at the slowest rates since at least the 1970s, wrote Sharma. The number of publicly traded U.S. companies had fallen by nearly half, to around 4,400, since the peak in 1996. (The number of start-ups has increased in the pandemic, but that may be because so many businesses closed.)

Alas, though, big companies are becoming huge and more monopolistic in this easy money, low interest rate era. It is not only because the internet created global winner-take-all markets, which have enabled companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple to amass cash piles bigger than the reserves of many nation-states. Its also because they can so easily use their inflated stock prices or cash hordes to buy up budding competitors and suck up all the talent and resources crowding out the little guys, Sharma said.

Meanwhile, he added, as governments keep stepping in to eliminate recessions, downturns no longer play their role of purging the economy of inefficient companies, and recoveries have grown weaker and weaker, with lower productivity growth. So it takes more and more stimulus each time to prop up growth.

This is all actually making our system more fragile.

Now that so many countries, led by the U.S., have massively increased their debt loads, if we got even a small burst of inflation that drove interest on the 10-year Treasury to 3 percent from 1 percent, the amount of money the U.S. would have to devote to debt servicing would be so enormous that little money might be left for discretionary spending on research, infrastructure or education or another rainy day.

Read more:
Opinion | Made in the U.S.A.: Socialism for the Rich. Capitalism for the Rest. - The New York Times

George Orwells novel 1984, a warning about a dystopian world where authoritarians are able to control the population by use of technology, is no longer fiction its at our doorstep. In a chilling and frightening secretly recorded video, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said, We have deleted one account, but this will go long into the future. Translation: we have been able to silence the President of the United States, but soon we will be silencing anyone who opposes our path towards socialism.

The Democratic Party of today is obviously allied with the media and mega wealthy big tech globalists, because they believe in the same thing socialism. This is not the Democratic Party of even four years ago. The classic liberalism of the partys past actually believed in free speech. Not anymore. Using COVID as an excuse to spy on you and control you, the far left Democratic Party of today is on their way to the lockstep single party control they seek.

Socialism and communism are branches of the same tree. In the socialist/communist mind, there can be no higher authority than the State so they must tarnish and destroy anything that competes for state supremacy. This includes religion, a nations traditions and culture and any competing idea. Rather than allow debate, which comes from irredeemably evil people, they demonize and silence opposition. That is why socialists tear down statues, cancel opposing voices and downplay Christmas and Thanksgiving. These threats to State supremacy must be diminished.

Biden, who was not required to take a position on the issues by his allies, the media, has since elected, and moved quickly to satisfy the far left. The left, which already controls the media and education, is moving towards even more control of your life. They will move to control energy production and your healthcare and every aspect of your life will be overseen by government because you are a simpleton, and they know better than you.

AOC, who used to be far left, but is now becoming orthodoxy in the Democrat Party, is already making us aware that there will be a new government agency to identify and eliminate any voices that they deem untruthful. Government and its allies, the media globalists, will decide truth.

History is full of great civilizations that have gone with the wind. Ronald Reagan was a visionary when he said, the extinction of freedom is never more than a generation away.

Eben D. Henson

Danville

See the article here:
Democratic Party believes in socialism - The Advocate-Messenger - Danville Advocate

Bruce Friesens letter (Democracy vs. socialism, CVN, Vol. 26, No. 17) indicating that democrats are attempting to overthrow our government through socialistic actions which he claims lead to communism is troubling for so many reasons. I understand that facts, science, education and truth are not likely to sway Trump supporters, but I am compelled to point out the facts, nonetheless.

Communism is both a political and economic system while socialist countries tend to be democratic. The author seems to use Marxist theory to express the belief that socialism leads to communism, for which there are no examples. But he ignores another tenet of Marxist philosophy that states that communism can only come about via revolution. Both of these models use the idea that the government provides for each person. This is based not only on their needs but on what they can contribute back to society.

Communists believe that the state or the government should control and own all aspects of economic production. They also think that the state should provide every citizen with their basic needs.

Socialism is a bit more flexible. Socialists believe that all citizens should share in economic resources and who can have what is decided by a democratically elected government. This means that unlike communism, socialists do believe in private property. All industry and production are communally owned and managed by an elected government.

There are only five countries in the world that claim to be communist: China, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos and Cuba. Two of those clearly had revolutions, as have Russia and France. France is clearly not communist or even socialist. Many European countries have elements of socialism, as does the United States. Social Security, Medicare, police and fire departments are just a handful of examples that we enjoy in our country. Do a little research and the difference become obvious.

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Communism and socialism, not the same | Opinion | coastalview.com - Coastal View News